Jeremy Wonderling Wins For Grandpa

E. Smethport, PA….Racing for Grandpa is what it said on the quarter panels of Jeremy Wonderling’s GRT Grand Prix Super Stock Saturday night. Unfortunately, Jeremy’s Grandpa, Bob Baldwin, Sr. died earlier in the week. Regardless, Jeremy raced for his Grandpa, his old Scio Speed Society friend Brock Young, the entire Wonderling racing family, the race fans in the nearly full McKean County Raceway [MCR] grandstand, and himself to claim his first ever Super Stock A-Main victory.

The 24 year old racing logger picked a great night to win. MCR management and Brock Young’s family had posted $1422 to win the 2nd Annual Brock Young Memorial BRP CanAm Super Stock Series event. During the evening, the Kortarsky family from Batavia and the Scio Speed Society each added $100 to the winner’s take resulting in a giant $1622 pay day for the handsome redhead who owns and maintains his race car.

Unfortunately, Wonderling did not get to celebrate his victory in Winner’s Circle, but in the Tech Barn. Todd Hansen crossed the line first and enjoyed a great Winner’s Circle party with his John Bedell / John’s Collision Race Team. The party ended in a giant disappointment for Hansen and his team when their GRT Grand Prix failed to meet the minimum 104” wheelbase specification.

Wonderling started third in the high quality 26 car field and blasted to the top spot to lead the first lap. He lost the lead to second place starter Todd Hansen on a lap two restart and fought off several early lap challengers to race in the second position throughout the 30 lap contest.

The event was slowed by four caution periods, but the tow truck was never needed. Several high profile teams were involved in the caution causing incidents including Series point leader Andy Miller who was a DNF in 22nd, Bill Holmes a DNF in 24th, and Darren Kish a DNF in 25th.

TJ Shaw finished second for his best ever BRP CanAm Super Stock Series event run. An interesting footnote is that the Wonderling and Shaw cars were those most seriously damaged in the June 18 Series event at Freedom Raceway. Shaw stated, “This car is still a mess from the Freedom crash. It was on the frame machine for three days and we are still finding bent and broken parts, but the old girl was good enough tonight for this slick race track. This was a great night for us. We found that this GRT was short several weeks ago, but we spent a lot of time and money to bring it up to track and Series specifications. You still worry whenever you are lucky / good enough to be sent here [Tech Barn]”

Todd Rice and Bob Dixon provided the best racing of the night as they raced from 11th and 7th respectively to provide an outstanding side by side battle for third with Rice claiming the spot on the all important 30th lap. Dixon, the defending Series Champion, would have liked third better, but coming off a 22nd at Merrittville and 18th at Freedom, he was happy to be in the Tech Barn. Dustin Croft was another driver to record his best ever Series finish as he brought his Jack Croft Used Cars GRT Monte Carlo home fifth.

Rounding out the top ten finishers were Tim Rockwell, Jim Johnson, AJ Young, Jason Dupont, and Tim Schram. Rockwell continues to impress everyone with his fourth top ten in four starts. Johnson used the Genesee Speedway night off for his best ever BRP CanAm finish. A heat race tangle almost tore the body off of his Upstate Utilities Rocket Mustang, but she was back in showroom condition for the Main. AJ Young would have loved to win the race that honors his Brother and race in the top five for the first half of the contest. Dupont earned the Hard Charger award by coming from last [26th] to ninth. Schram was wearing the fast lucky green sheet metal on his GRT Monte Carlo.

The event was run under a star filled sky in front of a very appreciative crowd. The BRP CanAm Super Stock Series will return to McKean County Raceway on Thursday August 19 for the Annual County Fair stock car race.

The next event for the BRP CanAm Super Stock Series is Saturday August 14 at the Genesee Speedway in Batavia, NY.

The BRP CanAm Super Stock Series is designed to promote the extremely competitive weekly Super Stock programs at Bradford [PA] Speedway, Freedom [NY] Raceway, Genesee [NY] Speedway, and McKean County [PA] Raceway. The 2004 BRP CanAm Super Stock Series includes 12 programs with events scheduled at the weekly tracks plus, Little Valley [NY] Speedway, Merrittville [Ont] Speedway, Ransomville [NY] Speedway, and Woodhull [NY] Raceway. Visit www.brpcanamsuperstockseries.com or contact Gary Montgomery at 315-536-3728 for more information.

Results:

Heats [10 laps / top five qualify / top three redraw]

#1 – DARREN KISH, Ron Baker, Jeremy Wonderling, Rick Tingue, Bill Holmes, Wayne Adamczak, Terry Pangrazio, Tim Thornton, Tim Dunham, Jim Mazur

#2 – TIM ROCKWELL, AJ Young, Bob Dixon, Justin Chaddock, Jim Johnson, Neil Patterson, Jay Deming, Todd Shaw, Tom Schnars, Paul Grigsby

#3 – TODD HANSEN, TJ Shaw, Dustin Croft, Tim Schram, Bruce Miller, Jason Tingue, Jason Dupont, Dennis Peters, Dean Ingalls

#4 – TODD RICE, Chad Arnold, Jr. Peters, Bo Clark, Matt Cobb, Andy Miller, Mike Wonderling, Jr, Alan Wais, Dave Dubois

B- Mains [10 laps / top two qualify]

#1 – WAYNE ADAMCZAK, Tim Thornton, Terry Pangrazio, Neil Patterson, Jim Mazur, Paul Grigsby, Jay Deming

#2 – ANDY MILLER, Jason Dupont, Jason Tingue, Dave Dubois, Alan Wais, Bob Babbitt

Provisional Starters: Jim Mazur, Bob Babbitt

A-Main [30 laps] 1. JEREMY WONDERLING, 2. TJ Shaw, 3. Todd Rice, 4. Bob Dixon, 5. Dustin Croft, 6.Tim Rockwell, 7. Jim Johnson, 8 AJ Young, 9. Jason Dupont, 10. Tim Schram, 11. Jr. Peters, 12. Ron Baker, 13. Jim Mazur, 14. Bruce Miller, 15. Bo Clark, 16. Matt Cobb, 17. Wayne Adamczak, 18. Chad Arnold, 19. Bob Babbitt, 20. Rick Tingue, 21. Tim Thornton, 22. Andy Miller, 23. Justin Chaddock, 24. Bill Holmes, 25. Darren Kish, DQ Todd Hansen, DNQ Dave Dubois, Tom Schnars, Dennis Peters, Terry Pangrazio, Jay Deming, Dean Ingalls, Mike Wonderling, Jr., Todd Shaw, Tim Dunham, Paul Grigsby, Neil Patterson, Jason Tingue, Alan Wais